Episodes
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Series Finale
When he first ran for President, Donald Trump was called the "chaos candidate". And to bitter end, that has been borne out. But another kind of radical change has happened over the last four years, often out of the headlines. So, for our last episode, we take stock of the past four years.
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"Sound science is not leading the decisions made by this nation."
There have been a number of changes in how the EPA, under President Trump, uses science. It has come with much criticism, including from former EPA officials. On this episode, we hear from a veteran EPA scientist on what drove him to leave the Trump Administration. Chris Zarba worked at the EPA…
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Trump's Last Act: Drilling in the Arctic Refuge
The outgoing president has a few orders of business he'd like to take care of before January 20. Among them is a controversial plan to drill for oil in the country's largest stretch of untouched wilderness. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is 20 million acres of mountains, tundra and coast...
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What does Biden's win mean for the environment and the fight to rein in climate change?
President-Elect Biden ran as a moderate Democrat, but he also campaigned on an aggressive climate platform. How much of that agenda he can pursue could rest on who controls the US Senate, pending results of two runoff elections in Georgia. We unpack what's coming next with Jody Freeman, law...
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How the Environment is Playing in Swing States
On this episode, we're looking at what role climate change and other environmental issues could play in deciding the election. We check in with reporters in three major battleground states--Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida--to find out. Our guests are Alex Harris, a climate reporter with the...
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Will 2020 be the Year of the Climate Voter?
As Election Day nears, a majority of registered voters in the United States say climate change will be an important issue in making their choice for president. That's according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted over the summer. And it's a sharp contrast to the 2016 race when only 2% of...
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Trump vs the Courts
Many of President Trump's environmental actions have faced court challenges. So how's the administration doing? First we hear from Ann Carlson, professor of environmental law at UCLA about a climate change case just added to the Supreme Court docket. And then we take a look at how the Trump...
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Losing RBG
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a feminist icon in the U.S., as one of the first women in many of the roles and rooms she found herself in over her life. Her death and the subsequent race by the Trump administration to confirm her successor will remake American law for decades, most notably by putting…
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Labor Unions and Environmentalists Join Forces to Defeat Trump
President Trump calls himself a "great environmentalist" while at the same time gutting environmental protections and questioning the science around climate change. He often explains his actions by claiming regulations are job killers that hurt the economy. But even with the rollbacks…
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Why the Trump Administration is Rolling Back a Climate Rule that Big Oil Actually Likes
Trump's EPA recently announced that it was rolling back yet another big Obama-era climate rule. This time, the target was a rule on oil and gas emissions of methane, the powerful greenhouse gas that is the main component of natural gas. The Obama administration created the rule in 2016 and some…
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@ Interior: Victories and Defeats for Oil Industry
It took 40 years but this week the Trump administration announced that it would open up 1.5 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. The administration argues the decision will lead to jobs and generate billions of dollars in revenue, but opponents warn that opening the...
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2020: Our last chance to save the planet?
We are now three months away from an election that could determine A LOT, including what our future climate looks like. On this episode, we discuss the 2020 election through the prism of climate change. We talk with Marianne Levelle, a reporter with Inside Climate News, about Joe Biden's evolving...
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Major defeats for pipelines…and Trump.
Federal courts recently handed down major decisions against big pipelines that would transmit oil and gas around the country. And other big pipelines are facing legal challenges that may put them out of business. What do these decisions mean for America's continued oil and gas buildout and the...
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Trump issues final rules to weaken NEPA
This week, President Trump announced he was issuing final rules to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The new rules will limit public review of federal infrastructure projects to speed up the permitting of highways, power plants & pipelines. Since its passage in 1970, NEPA has...
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Living on Earth: Bill McKibben on the Divestment Movement
Harvard is one of the latest in a series of wealthy institutions around the world announcing steps towards pulling their investments in the fossil fuel industry. But Harvard's announcement has been called too little, too late. Bill McKibben, author of "The End of Nature" and cofounder of 350.org,...
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Tracking Trump's Environmental Rollbacks
Harvard Law School is keeping tabs on the regulatory changes of the Trump Administration. What's the lasting legacy of the nearly 100 environmental rollbacks?
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Can the environmental movement address American racism?
There's a growing understanding that racial disparities in the U.S. extend beyond policing, to public health and the environment. Communities of color are more likely to breathe polluted air, live near polluting industries and be exposed to toxic chemicals. And now COVID-19 is disproportionately...
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Can Joe Biden Convince Climate Voters He Is One of Them?
Joe Biden ran considerably to the right of his top rivals on climate policy. But now that he is the nominee, the Biden campaign is trying to convince climate activists that his campaign is taking the issue seriously.
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Trump's Executive Order to Keep Meat Plants Open Could Be Risky. Here's Why.
President Trump ordered meat processing plants to stay open despite workers getting sick with the coronavirus. On this episode, Jacob Bunge, agriculture reporter for the Wall Street Journal, talks about the meat industry, worker safety, farmers' fears, euthanizing pigs and other issues with the...
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If it Ain't Broke What Are We Fixing, Exactly?
Last week the EPA announced a major change to a landmark regulation that has reduced toxic air pollution like mercury from coal-fired power plants. The vast majority of these plants have already complied with the rule. So why did the EPA roll it back now?
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Coronavirus is like Climate Change on Steroids
If you've been following climate change, the coronavirus pandemic might feel oddly familiar these days. Many countries have implemented radical policies that would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago to slow the spread of the virus. Is this what it will take to solve the climate crisis? On this...
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How Dark Money Fuels Mistrust of Science
How does doubt about science play out in a moment like we're experiencing now where public health and millions of lives depend on good science and trusting scientists? Our guest is David Michaels, an epidemiologist and author of "The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception."
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EPA to Polluters: Monitor Yourselves
Industry is struggling during the coronavirus crisis and one way the Trump administration has responded is by suspending enforcement of some environmental regulations. The EPA made the announcement on Thursday. Companies are usually required to report when they discharge certain levels of…
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A Dark History
Yes, Trump has cozied up to oil companies. He's said we should have taken the oil from Iraq. And it does seem like we are cozying up to petro-state strongmen in Russia and Saudi Arabia. But is this any different from how the United States and other western powers have operated over the last 150...
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Trump Administration Ending Long-Standing Protections for Migratory Birds
At more than 100 years old, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was among the first environmental laws in the United States. Until recently, power companies and other industries could be prosecuted by the federal government for causing egregious bird deaths, even accidentally. Not anymore. The Trump...
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Manipulating Data to Exploit a Disaster
Did the Trump administration manipulate wildfire science to promote the logging industry? An investigation in the Guardian newspaper says yes.
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Is this Trump's Biggest Environmental Rollback?
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is often called the Magna Carta of environmental law. President Nixon signed it into law 50 years ago this month. And President Trump honored the anniversary by announcing plans to drastically scale back the law. On this episode, we dig into what many...
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Strengthening Transparency or Silencing Science?
Word leaked a few weeks ago that the EPA is poised to finalize a rule to limit the types of scientific studies that can be used to create new regulations. The proposal -- named "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science" -- would require public health researchers to release their raw...
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What's the Future of Global Climate Policies?
The Paris Climate Agreement was put in place to prevent catastrophic and runaway global warming. And since taking office, President Trump has been threatening to pull the U.S. out of it. Earlier this month, he made it official. On this episode we hear from the man who helped put the U.S. in the...
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Murray Energy, A Major Trump Ally, Goes Bankrupt
President Trump came into office promising to save coal and coal jobs. Instead, the industry has continued to slide. The question now is--how far will it go? The coal industry once employed hundreds of thousands of workers. Now, it's just about 50,000. And eight coal companies have declared...
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One Man's Quest to Transform American Energy
Wildfires have once again spread across California...and millions of residents have been living without power for weeks. The deliberate blackouts by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, or PG&E, are an attempt to prevent power lines from starting new fires, a real possibility in dry and windy...
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Rick Perry Made Me Do It
President Trump says a key phone call at the center of the Ukraine scandal was Energy Secretary Rick Perry's idea. But Perry asserts that in his conversations with Trump, "not once, as God as my witness, not once was a Biden name ever mentioned." On this episode we connect the dots between Perry...
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Who's Watching the Hogs?
Last month, the USDA quietly issued a new rule changing meat inspection standards for pork. Not only would the new rule mean slaughter houses could run their processing lines as fast as they want, it would also change who does the inspecting, giving the pork producers themselves a bigger role in...
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Trump and the Philosophy of Climate Denial
How do you change the minds of climate deniers and people -- say the President -- who doubt the scientific process in general? We ask a philosopher of science for some answers. Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and a…
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We Watched All Seven Hours of the Climate Town Hall. Here's What You Should Know.
Last time round, climate change got a measly five minutes and 27 seconds of airtime in the debates. During this primary season, it got seven hours in one night alone. CNN's recent town hall provided each of the 10 candidates an opportunity to lay out their plan to deal with climate change. It was...
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'This is no longer about the science. This is somebody's ideology.'
A top climate scientist resigned from the Agriculture Department this month. Lewis Ziska says the USDA buried his research. He's one in a line of researchers who've left the federal government because they claim the administration is censoring climate science.
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The Nuclear Dilemma
Today, nuclear plants provide 20% of US power generation. But according to a report last year by the non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists, of the 99 nuclear reactors nationwide, owners have shut down six in recent years. Seven more are slated for retirement. In the age of climate change, the...
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California v. Trump
The Trump administration has rolled back more than 80 environmental regulations but some states are fighting back. No state has been more active in the resistance against Trump's environmental deregulations than California. Case in point: last week, news broke that four of the world's biggest...
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Fact Check: Trump's Environmental Speech
Surrounding by several members of his cabinet, President Trump recently gave a speech at the White House touting his own environmental record. Even though he's tried to rolled back environmental regulations at a record pace, Trump painted a picture of a country where economic growth has occurred…
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So Long, Clean Power Plan. It Was Nice Knowing You.
The Trump administration recently rolled out the affordable clean energy (ACE) rule. Critics say it basically does nothing to prevent climate change at a time when global warming is turning into an existential crisis. Our guest is Jody Freeman, a professor at Harvard Law School and founder of the...
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Will Climate Change Matter in 2020?
There wasn't a single question about global warming in the 2016 presidential debates. Will 2020 be different? There are 23 Democrats vying for their party's nomination. Who has a plan to fight climate change (and who doesn't)? And what will President Trump's eventual Democratic challenger say on...
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Climate change's big question: Can we get to zero carbon?
Recent reports stress the urgency of reducing carbon emissions to check the worst effects of climate change. On this episode we listen in as some very knowledgable experts wade into the possibilities, obstacles and potential solutions. The panelists: Paulina Jaramillo, associate professor of...
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That Time We Could Have Stopped Climate Change. . .
Forty years ago, the U.S. government began to take climate change seriously and for a short time period, politicians from both parties endorsed taking actions to avert what was by then understood to be an existential problem for humanity. So what happened? And what can we learn from the decade we...
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An Explosion in Drilling on Public Lands Driven by 'Energy Dominance'
President Trump's push to have oil and gas drilling on public lands has hit some snags lately. A federal court recently halted leasing on 300,000 acres of public land in Wyoming after the court ruled the administration hadn't adequately considered climate change on its decision to lease the land....
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The Green New Deal: Two Takes
Now that a proposal is on the table, some see it as a chance to create jobs and equalize the economy. But critics say it should laser focus on climate action.
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The Pollution Police
What happens when environmental laws and rules aren't enforced? When the environmental cops just aren't on the beat? Under Trump, EPA inspections have fallen to a 10-year low. On this episode, we hear from Juliet Eilperin who has covered this story for The Washington Post. Why does the EPA need...
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A Surge of Black Lung Disease in Appalachia
This week we're bringing you a interview with NPR's Howard Berkes about the proliferation of black lung disease among coal miners in Appalachia. It comes from our sister podcast called Energy Explained, produced by the public radio collaboration StateImpact Pennsylvania The interview covers not...
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Green New Deal. You've Heard the Phrase. Here's What it Means.
If there were a billboard top 100 for policy ideas, the Green New Deal would be at the top of the charts for several weeks running. It's not a policy, or a bill--more like aspirations that combine swift action on climate change with broad social and economic reforms. Alexander Kaufman has been...
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Zinke's Out. What's the Damage to Public Lands?
The federal government is the nation's largest landowner, managing 500 million acres under the Department of the Interior. And while some expect that America's public lands are managed for the benefit and enjoyment of the people, others say the Trump administration has allowed interests like…
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As the World Burns
Three years ago, most of the world's nations signed onto the Paris Climate Agreement, which committed countries to do their best to avert a climate catastrophe. Well, things are different now. President Donald Trump has vowed to take the U.S. out of the deal, but the vast majority of countries…
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